Garifuna

On May 5, a group of Afro-indigenous Garifuna men stood guard at the entrance of La Travesía community in the department of Cortes in northern Honduras. The men were fumigating vehicles, documenting the traffic transiting through their community, and implementing other bio security measures as part of community-led prevention efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19. In the afternoon, a police vehicle arrived and stopped at the check point. The Garifuna men were told they had to disperse and could not put up a check-point, which according to the police, is illegal. When the local residents insisted on maintaining it, the police threatened to return with a military convoy and to launch tear gas to break it up. The community refused to budge.